This follows on from my blog below where I started to think about this week’s session with the U16s. I decided on the whole-part-whole but even though I knew what I wanted to coach I wasn’t happy with the “part” bit as I felt it wasn’t going to be challenging or (honestly) that enjoyable.

Therefore, I’ve looked at how I might get this topic out in an SSG format and have created the game as per below.

In terms of the scoring rules, I’m going to look at progressing with these. For example, I may start with just 1 rule, then discuss working crosses from deep and add that rule, then discuss overlaps and add that rule so it builds up.

I expect to have in the region of 15-17 at training so I expect this might be a rotation of 3 teams in a 5v5, 6v6 format.

After focusing on the topic of Pressing with my U16s for the past 4-5 weeks I feel it’s time to freshen things up a bit. I’ve therefore selected the topic of ‘Crossing from wide areas’ as I think we’ve found it a bit difficult to get balls in to the box when in good positions so far this season.

So, here’s my thought process in terms of a session for Thursday.

In terms of a topic, I’ve broken it down in a couple of different ways to think about what my coaching points are. I’ve written down a few notes in terms of position of delivery, type of delivering and how we might find space to create a deliver.

Position

From byline

From deep

From “standard” position (in and around area between by line and 18-20 yards out)

Type of delivery

Low / High

Floated / Driven

Front post / central / far post

Creating Space

Beat a player

Support behind

Support ahead (overlap)

If we look at it in terms of the four corners…

Technical

Crossing

Dribbling

Passing

Control

Receiving

Shooting

Heading

Psychological

When to cross

Where to cross

What type of delivery

How to create space

How to support in order to create crossing opportunity

Social

Communicating type of delivery

Communicating support

Verbally / non-verbally

Looking at all of that I’ve gone with the following (as it stands):

Format: Whole-Part-Whole

Whole (1): Small sided game, no conditions, I want to observe how often they play wide and also, whether they work crossing opportunities from wide.

Part: I want to focus on two parts of this having broken it down. Firstly, I want to look at creating an opportunity to cross and secondly, I want to look at support from other players to create an opportunity to cross. Therefore, I’m going to set up the part as per below with 3 lanes.

More specifically I’d have groups of 3, with players going in both directions (up & down pitch) to create an element of interference. I fully expect them to run as per the diagram with a ball to go out wide and a delivery then coming from wide – I shall ask them to work a delivery from a wide lane.

What I’d then like to do is challenge them with the following question, “How else might we create a crossing situation in a game?” and what I’d specifically be looking for are two answers “Overlap” and “Support behind (or from full-back”. I would then like to see if they can work an overlap situation with their 3 and also create a scenario where they work a cross from deep, or a full-back position. I want to see if they can picture it and create it.

I may then progress by adding a defender or goalkeeper or go in to a SSG with the lanes still setup. Initially, a player can go in a wide lane but cannot be tackled in there. I may then progress to say, they cannot be in the wide lane before the pass is made so they need to move in to receive and that they can only spend 5 seconds in the wide lane before the ball needs to come out.

The lane will focus the game on wide play but it won’t help with support in terms of an overlap of behind so I’d then want to take the lanes out to allow for those opportunities to be explored.

The latter would then move us back in to the whole as soon as we’re in a game situation.

How can we create the space to get a cross in to the box? (Beat a player, overlap, support behind)

In terms of recent mod 2 content.

Clear learning focus? Yes

Is it realistic to the game? Yes

Is it relevant to the game? Yes

Is there repetition of the learning focus? Yes

So, a bit of a brain term blog post as it’s helping frame thoughts ahead of Thursday’s session. Expect I’ll re-visit tomorrow night as I want to look at how the SSG could support overlaps or crosses from deep when the wide zones are in place. Thoughts/input welcome!

Back home now after the second day of the Youth Award Mod 2 course and it’s been another day which has really provided a lot of thought with regards how I plan sessions, how I coach players and ultimately, how I can become a better teacher of the game.

Today was split in two really (partly due to outside circumstances) as we spent the morning inside working on theory and then spent this afternoon outside looking at different types of practice.

This morning we looked at some of the practices from yesterday and in particular we were looking at the trade offs each type of practice provided. That is, did the practice give lots of ball contact or minimal ball contact? Did it provide lots of technical development or low technical development? The same question was asked with a number of different cards which had everything from “Endurance” to “Trial & Error” and “Game Craft” written on them. Really, the message is – when planning your session consider what you’re providing lots of and as a result what that means you (well, a player) will get less of.

We also looked at ways in which a coach can support and recognise players who may need support due to where they are in their biological development and also how different types of sessions can or could effect players in this context, i.e. Starting to think that players may need rests or breaks or considering that a player going through a growth spurt may need some time working on constant technique practice as is ABC’s might be affected.

This afternoon we’ve gone outside and looked at four different types of sessions (all great to play in!) and in doing so we’ve looked at how we might deliver them with various age groups or ability, how we can progress them, what sorts of ways you could manage players within them (think stronger/weaker players) and then later on we ranked them again with the high/low scale to see what the trade offs were. We also looked at breaking down a move (say ball control) in to the before – during – after mechanics of it and recognising that we should consider all of these when coaching a player as all are important.

Key messages today have been thinking about the trade offs, thinking about what you really want to get out of your session and also considering the ways in which you can take a practice as a template and alter it for your players. There was a load of other stuff but as far as a summary that’s it till next weekend 🙂

Very enjoyable first day on this course and within 2 hours you’ve got that many ideas running through your head that you know exactly why it was you signed up for it in the first place!

First part of the day was a bit of a recap of Mod 1 plus conversations around what makes a good coach, what people want to get out of the course and some interesting talk around that famous “warm up” you see of a coach laying off to strikers to score. This was taken as an example of looking at a form of practice, looking at the outcomes, asking are those outcomes realistic or relevant and looking at alternatives.

We were then tasked with creating sessions in groups of 3 and we had just 10 minutes to do this before two of the groups ran sessions. We looked at were they relevant to the age and level they were positioned at as well as talking around a lot of other factors but it was really about answering three questions; 1. Is the practice relevant to the game? 2. Is it realistic? 3. Does it provide repetition? This was under pinned with a need for a clear learning focus or outcome of the session.

The second part of the day looked at different types of practice; 1. Constant, 2. Variable and 3. Random. We looked at why you might use these, what players might get from it and how you might use them in your session. Very interesting and enlightening topic which makes you think a lot about your own sessions.

There was then a bit more discussion and that was it for day 1. Already taken loads from this course and that’s just 25% of the way through!

There’s no better way for a bit of self analysis than writing a blog post so I thought I’d post an update on how things have been going with the U16s since I first took them for a training session in early June.

Initial training sessions were purely based to see if we had enough for a team and also, what the general level of quality was like and the good news here was that I’ve inherited a capable and good bunch of lads. No issues from them, polite, happy to put the goals up and that gives you a great basis to work on.

So, early on the challenge was really to make sure it was enjoyable and each session was different – both topics that I’ve kept to this date. I used mixtures of various possession games as “warm ups” and in the early sessions we worked on playing out from the back for the first month.

We had a break for a few weeks in the summer and returning mid-August to prepare for the season. Again, we looked at a mixture of sessions where we looked at playing out from the back whilst also looking at keeping sessions flowing so that the time we had was high tempo and worked on their fitness.

The season has gone ok so far but now we’re on the all-weather astro turf it makes sessions a bit different because now I’m factoring in the lack of space, something you don’t have to worry about when on grass. Since training on the astro I’ve looked at pressing as a topic over the past 2-3 sessions which has been done through small games and we’ve looked primarily at when to press and pressing as a team (i.e. if your top player presses than can the rest of the team also go and press with him).

The lads listen well in training and it’s now about taking what we learn from the training ground and to the pitch. I’d like us to have played more football, especially out from the back, but in all honesty this has been difficult on some of the pitches we’re playing on.

The squad has moved from 12/13 to 16 now so that’s great news as we always have plenty of subs. My mantra during games is to ensure every player gets at least 40 minutes (games are 80 minutes), even if that means we change things around a bit and that loses us shape or potentially affects the result. It’s important that all boys get an equal amount of playing time as football’s not about a player sitting on a bench for 60 minutes, getting cold, then coming on for 10 minutes!

In terms of formations we started with 4-4-2 as that’s what they’re used to playing but in the last two games we tried 4-3-3. I asked them at training two weeks ago if they were open to trying new formations and they were so I thought we’d start with 4-3-3. It’s resulted in us being more solid through the middle but we’ve not created as many chances going forward since making this change. Again, it’s quite hard to work on something resembling a new formation when you’re training on an area the size of two tennis courts! We did a session on the shape of the midfield 3 but that’s all we’ve been able to work on so far.

Now I understand more about the players I’d like to define a style of play for us to work with. I think that helps as a footballer – that is; where are we focusing our play? Are we wanting to get it wide? Do we want to play direct? Do we want to play through a front man?

I’ve not defined what that style should be and I’ll certainly consult the players on it. We all want to play the game the right way but perhaps they’ll decide on a style which they feel suits them and doesn’t perhaps fit my own ideologies.

I’m thoroughly enjoying working with this age group. It offers different challenges from the U7-U10s I’ve worked with for the past 3 years (and continue to work with) and it’s good coaching experience for me. With U7-U10 you’re working on the real basics and they’re very mouldable (I know that’s not a word but you get the drift!) whilst with the U16s you’re working on slightly different topics with players who have maybe picked up bad habbits or are more set in the way they play. However, they’re still young enough to develop, they want to learn and you can talk more about tactics and systems.

If I find some time I’ll share some of the sessions we’ve used recently but generally my spare time is spent planning sessions for either the U10s or U16s!